Another side to the question is just how long will any of us be able to read them? The actual DVD may last for generations but will DVD players / readers? It hasn't been that long since VHS & Beta tapes were the way to record things for the future & since then the floppy drive came & went too. Fat 16 died along the way to FAT 32 & whether we like it or not there simply doesn't seem to be ANY way to guarantee to pass on our images to future generations short of constantly re saving them to the next wave of device brought out to replace the ones we're upgrading from.

Cicopo wrote:
... like it or not there simply doesn't seem to be ANY way to guarantee to pass on our images to future generations short of constantly re saving them to the next wave of device brought out to replace the ones we're upgrading from.

Agreed.

For now, all of my images are on at least two hard drive archives, plus recent galleries and processed files are on a third set. I have a total of about 14TB 'online' disk space at the moment, with about 9TB of archived images. The 'external' archive disks are usually turned off and stored elsewhere.

For DVD's I find Taiyo Yuden (now JVC) and/or Verbatim are as good as it gets. Both made in Japan, although, recently Verbatim are more likely made in Taiwan, Singapore, etc.
Blu-Ray, Verbatim or TDK. Again, both made in Japan.

jcolwell wrote:
That's nice, but isn't the reliable lifetime of CD-R media only about ten years?

Depends whose research you trust most. Goes from "garbage" to 100+ years. It's all about quality of media.
Another factor is interface. Since days of CD's optical media readers are kept compatible. If you go back to early 90's can you still find computer in your house that can attach to these disks?

It's really six of ones and half-dozen of the others. People believe in what works for them. There's always someone else that has chosen something different that works for them.

Prints will always be readable by the current reader. Eyes have been in fashion for thousands of years. I have family albums dating to the 1920's and the photos still look great. I have no idea who most of the people are, but the prints are great.

jcolwell wrote:
That's nice, but isn't the reliable lifetime of CD-R media only about ten years?753951 wrote:
Depends whose research you trust most. Goes from "garbage" to 100+ years. It's all about quality of media.
Another factor is interface. Since days of CD's optical media readers are kept compatible. If you go back to early 90's can you still find computer in your house that can attach to these disks?

It's really six of ones and half-dozen of the others. People believe in what works for them. There's always someone else that has chosen something different that works for them.

I think it depends on the environment. If you live in Boulder Col. where the natural BG radiation is very high and you additionally keep them on an open wooden shelf then probably something like 10 years is maybe it. OTOH if you live in an area where the BG radiation is very low and additionally keep them in a metal enclosure (or something extreme like led lined sheaths) then probably much longer. Yeah sure, 100 years doesn't seem unreasonable - even if you take them out and use them once a year...

How long are solid-state devices supposed to hold data anyway? How about SSDs and such?

Sure you may have some of those things laying around... but did your last computer have a drive/interface to read them?

SCSI and PATA are on the way out

CDs are available mostly because they fit the music industry so well, but for today's data streams (esp photographers) it's generally not enough.

Bottom line is that as long as you get a good enough quality media to last...say 25 years - and it is stored decently well, then you can still expect to have to migrate the data over to the next generation 'thingy'.
Again, it's not the media you have to worry about as much in the long term ... it's the devices to read them.

I was using "That's" - which is Taiyo Yuden's own distribution branding. Taiyo Yuden basically invented the CD and DVD media technology we're using today. The reason I used them is cuz all of the shop managers and tech support staffers I've ever talked to Japan-wide, told me they were the best most reliable brand. <shrug>

Currently and for the past hmmm, 4 or 5 years, I buy those off-brand towers of 100 printable disks for $10. No problems so far. I guess I've gone through about 8 or 10 packages by now. Probably another 8 or 10 of the 50-Pack "That's" from past days:

Cicopo wrote:
Another side to the question is just how long will any of us be able to read them? The actual DVD may last for generations but will DVD players / readers? It hasn't been that long since VHS & Beta tapes were the way to record things for the future & since then the floppy drive came & went too. Fat 16 died along the way to FAT 32 & whether we like it or not there simply doesn't seem to be ANY way to guarantee to pass on our images to future generations short of constantly re saving them to the next wave of device brought out to replace the ones we're upgrading from. ...Show more →
The Digital Dark Age will soon be upon us. If not here already!

Thanks Jay! So I guess the cheapest SSDs possible are about the same? I can't imagine Chronolock is anything much different from what's found on standard SSD drives - although $89 MSRP for 16GB isn't much to pay considering we were all paying that for just our memory cards only one year ago. Currently one can find 128GB SDXC cards for about $65 although most makers list the data retention as being 10 years. Ten seems long enough to keep until the next bigger and cheaper technology comes along. I'd only need 10 of them in order to fit all the RAW, Jpeg, and PSD files I've accumulated slash created since I my first digital camera and only one for the "family album".